Church is Never Going to be the Same
There are some specific steps that you should be taking to make sure that you can reach out to your neighborhood post-pandemic. | by Don Corder
Church is never going to be the same. Most of the churches I know who have reopened, did so to about 20-30% attendance compared to pre-covid levels. The Church is once again a minority religious sect in a predominantly secular culture and we better start acting like it.
I work with churches and church leaders everyday all over the country. Some churches have reopened. Most have not. A few churches have prospered and grown over the last several months. Most have not. Most churches and church leaders I know are waiting patiently to reopen, hoping the people will come back. Waiting and hoping. Isn’t that what the church has been doing for the last 40 years? Waiting and hoping that people will magically walk through the door and join our church. How has that worked out? If those people did not materialize for the last 40 years, do we really think all we have to do is open our doors and everyone who once attended will return? It is not going to happen. Now is the time to prepare.
Ben Franklin said “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” Now is the time for the church to be the church. Very soon will be the time for the biggest evangelistic push the church has seen in a generation. While we still have people and we still have resources, plan!
What is your church’s plan to:
- Connect with your core people and direct them into serving again?
- Connect with your neighborhood and encourage them to come?
- Connect with people who are desperate for God and show them they are loved?
- Connect with the community of people who once lived on the fringe of your ministry and show them they are missed?
If you don’t have a plan, start one. If you don’t know where to start, can I make a suggestion?
Here is a link to a turnkey process to (re)connect your church to its core membership, casual attenders, neighborhood and community. If you and your leadership follow the six week process, you will end up with an energized core of people ready to reach out to your neighborhood for Christ and a time tested and proven plan to engage the world around your church.
This is the very plan we use at The Provisum Group every day to grow churches all over the country. The plan has been developed through trial and error by a group of pastors and outreach professionals who have been growing churches for decades. If we tried something and it worked, we kept doing it. If it did not work, we tried to fix it. If it still didn’t work, we stopped doing it. The bottom line is, this plan has withstood the test of time and it works.
The Church is slowly shrinking into irrelevance. It breaks my heart. I hope it breaks yours. I know it seems self-serving to recommend a book I wrote. If you know something that will energize your leadership to evangelize your neighborhood, show you how and has been tested and proven time and again, please, I am begging you, send it to me. I will gladly share it with everyone I know. Please “go” and “connect” with the neighborhood around you. Make disciples wherever you can, whenever you can with whoever you can.
It is time for the church to be the church and “go”.
